


Homemakers

by fluffernutter8



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Gen, Steggy Week 2016, copious discussion of food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 07:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7038868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffernutter8/pseuds/fluffernutter8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Two days before their wedding, they realize that neither of them knows how to cook.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homemakers

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: domesticity

Two days before their wedding, they realize that neither of them knows how to cook. Peggy never needed to learn. She had grown up in boarding schools and then the army, and the expectation had been that when she finally settled down the only skill she would need would be in directing the household help. Steve’s neighborhood would have laughed at that idea, but though he had been on his own for several years, he had never really had the money to afford to make anything particularly complex. They’ve grown to be natives of diners and handfruit and slapped-together sandwiches, and it’s just now that they’re deciding that maybe it’s time to become more settled.

“Well,” says Peggy, legs curled beside her on the sofa. She balances a cup of tea while reaching to hand Steve the thread so he can reinforce the button dangling from his jacket. “I suppose we’ll just have to learn together.”

* * *

They start with Bucky’s ma, because Steve’s eaten at her table enough to know she knows something. That turns out to be the problem, though, because she’s so used to thinking of him as underfoot that she can’t relax. After the fourth time she instinctively reaches behind herself to slap his hand with a “Not my good mixing bowl, Steven Rogers!” they decide that they might need a different setting, or at least one where Bucky doesn’t sit choking on laughter in the background.

There’s an ad for a cooking class. When they see it, they have a conversation made up mostly of side-glances and eyebrows about whether the awkwardness of it will be worth knowing how to make something other than tea and coffee, eggs and bacon and toast.

“I don’t know how long I can live on breakfast,” Steve finally says. They sign up for the class.

It’s just as awkward as they expected. They arrive early, with enough time for the instructor to pull Steve aside and tell him that this is all very respectable, no need for him to stay and supervise his wife.

“There never has been. But I think it’s gonna be real unfortunate if she’s the only one who gets the lessons when I’m the one who’ll be home and doing the cooking most of the time,” Steve points out sensibly. Peggy watches the woman gape, trying to figure out what to do. Steve steps around and, walking down to the end of the green laminate countertop, takes one of the aprons off the hook. He looks over at Peggy as he ties it on, and grins.

Some of the other women stare with silent disapproval too, but they’re both used to ignoring things like that. A few of the women are uncomfortable, maybe from things that happened during the war, maybe because they’re used to the kitchen being safe and defined and unconcerned with men. Peggy can see Steve feels bad about that part. He looks like he can’t figure out whether asking them if he should leave would make things better or worse. Peggy asks instead, and even though they say it’s alright, Steve still walks gently around them, reaches bowls and pans from the shelves without being asked, sets them down and steps away.

He and Peggy chat quietly while they work on their pancakes. By the end of the first class, they have at least six good ones, including three perfect ones. By the end of the week, they can make a potato and cheese bake (although Peggy isn’t certain she wants to) and a chicken pot pie, and the other women are calling Steve by his first name.

The class is made up mostly of war brides. Peggy isn’t even the only Englishwoman there, although most of the others are French or Russian or Japanese, meant to be learning to be proper American housewives.

“You know,” says Steve two weeks in, when they can make passable chocolate cake and vegetable stew and hamburgers, and silky smooth mashed potatoes, “I’m not sure that proper American food is the way to go.”

Peggy crumples the recipe card for something called a souffle salad which involves mayonnaise and lemon juice and olives and canned tuna. “You’re very smart, darling,” she tells him, and walks out. He leaves the apron and follows her.

* * *

They invite some of the other women from class over to their place. The kitchen is small but they work it out. They learn six things to do with cabbage, and how to make schnitzel. Peggy shows off her German. Chiyo teaches them the right way to cook rice and how to roll sushi and tells them where to buy rice vinegar. Steve tries out his Japanese. Chiyo and Peggy and, in his mind, Jim, laugh at him.

* * *

Bucky’s over pretty much every night, assuring them with a full mouth that they’re good beyond just feeding themselves. Still, experimenting with food is sort of a habit now. They have routines of it, comfortable lounging clothes and no shoes allowed and a particular station they like on the radio. While things are in the oven, they dance.

When they’ve been married six months, they decide to try out bread. It goes with nearly anything, and they found a recipe in a newspaper that seems simple: it doesn’t call for anything hard to come by, and the steps, mixing and kneading and rising and shaping, are all familiar.

“That was four dollars worth of ingredients,” Steve says dazedly several hours later. He is coated lightly in flour as if he has forgotten to come out of the snow.

Peggy eyes the lumpy dough creature and says, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to shoot it.”

* * *

For a few days they seem to forget it. Steve buys bread ready-made and cooks other things for dinner, and they make dessert together when Peggy gets home.

The following Friday, she comes in with five new pounds of flour under her arm and determination in her eyes. When she gets to the kitchen, she sees Steve’s corresponding bag, and his set jaw.

Their loaves look gorgeous going into the oven and come out still half unbaked, and blackened on the bottom.

* * *

They are two highly capable, mostly rational people. They have wedding rings and work and dinner dates and outings with friends and occasional couple’s espionage. They can cook nearly anything else by this point. There is no reason to be frustrated that they cannot conquer bread.

The next batch comes out of the oven looking perfect. It tastes only and exactly of yeast.

* * *

“You know, you could have bought half a bakery for the cost of trying to make this work,” Bucky says, peering at the baseball scores and scratching his neck absentmindedly.

“Not the same,” Steve mutters from where he is kneading.

“Vanilla!” Peggy comes through the doorway, a cookbook from the library held open in one hand. “A spoonful of vanilla extract will fix it up.”

It does not.

* * *

It works on Peggy’s birthday. They eat it still steaming, butter and raspberry jam spread thick, the sun coming through their windows and their feet sharing one kitchen chair.

“Do you remember that farm outside Paris?” Peggy asks. The Commandos had stopped there just after the end of the war and been treated to fresh baguettes so far from rationing that they had almost wept.

Steve looks at her, at her tousled hair and the way the jam reminds him of her lipstick. “Better,” they say simultaneously.

* * *

They host Thanksgiving because Bucky’s family wanted Christmas.

There are neat pieces of sushi as appetizers, a huge bowl of excellent mashed potatoes, and three perfect kinds of bread.

The turkey is half raw.

Bucky laughs ‘til he cries.

**Author's Note:**

> $4 is around $44.50 in today's currency.
> 
> The baking experienced in this story is based not insignficantly on my own battle to make consistently edible challah. As in every single thing that happens to them has happened to me.


End file.
